


The Heavy Hand Of Evolution

by thatdameoverthere



Category: Danny Phantom, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Alternate Universe, Female Danny, Ghosts as Humans, Multi, Quirk history, no ghosts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-06 18:41:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18394142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatdameoverthere/pseuds/thatdameoverthere
Summary: When Danny was eight a glowing baby was born.The world was changing, and she didn't know how to keep up.All she could do was try.A series of one shots, in no particular order, following the emergence of quirks.





	1. The Heavy Hand of Evolution

**Author's Note:**

> So this is just a little idea I had. It's part of a larger story i think about sometimes but for now its just a oneshot.
> 
> In an AU where everything is mostly the same, except without the actual ghost part. I'm here to explore quirk history using DP as a stepping stone.
> 
> Edit: I've decided to just post this as a one shot collection. Each chapter will not be chronological order, but just posted as i see fit.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The World is turning too fast, Danny doesn't know if she can keep up.

Danny was eight when she heard about the glowing baby.

It was less that she heard, and more that every channel and news station was covering the story and Danny was just trying to watch the Saturday cartoons. Normally she would have ignored the 'Breaking News!' headline and flicked through channels until something bright and loud caught her attention again, but the baby was glowing and Danny, all eight years old, felt like she understood that little baby on the screen.

It made her afraid.

Sitting on the floor in front of the tv, plate of toasted waffle crumbs that Jazz had made for her off to the side, her whole body seemed to flicker with her stress. She dug her fingers into the old carpet and took a deep breath like she practiced with Jazz.

Danny had been six when she first fell through the kitchen floor and into the basement. Her parents had been off on one their investigations, and Jazz had screamed when she followed her cries and found her floating in their parents lab.

They never told anyone.

Her and her sister were already teased because of their parents chosen occupation, what would people say when they saw what Danny could do?

They never told anyone.

And when Danny was eight, a glowing baby was born.

 

\-----------------------------

 

They called it a 'Quirk'.

The baby from China was the first baby to be born with one.

Danny hadn't been born with hers. Neither had the sparse few others she'd met.

The baby from China was the first baby to be _born_ with one, and it made all the difference.

It was barely four months after that news broadcast that they declared that it wasn't a freak mutation but evolution. The next step of human evolution. Danny had already thought of it. It didn't change much.

With everyone looking at the glowing baby it wasn't long before the first family stepped forward, their five year old son could stretch his body like a rubber band, bones and all. Then there was 10 year old with bright orange eyes who could sit happily in a roaring fire. There weren't many, and they were never much older than herself, but the world was turning its attention to the younger generations.

Like they said: the next step of human evolution.

Danny never told anyone.

When Danny was ten they opened the very first 'Quirk School'. There was only one in America, Danny had spent a whole Saturday in the library researching it. From then on the instances of families on TV with their 'Quirky children' dropped. The fear Danny had felt two years earlier returned. The fear would stay with her for years.

It was never stated outright, never addressed, but Danny knew that the less she heard about new children with quirks could only be a terrible thing.

 

\----------------------------------------------------

 

When Danny was 12 she watched as Kwan, one of the boys who bullied her, cried in boys bathroom after school.

She had never meant to go into the boys bathroom, really she hadn't, but she heard someone sobbing and had stood by the door looking worriedly down the hall, as if someone would _know_ and come rushing towards her to stop the crying.

Clutching her new astronomy book to her chest she hopped from foot to foot. She left the book in her classroom and had to turn around during her walk home with Jazz to go and get it. Jazz had tried to come with her, always trying to be the adult, but Danny had refused. She wasn't a baby. She didn't need her sister holding her hand.

She wished she had let jazz come with her. Jazz would know what to do.

It must have been hours, it felt like hours, that Danny stood and listened to the sobs. Chewing her lip and rubbing her neck Danny's mind rolled to a stop. No one else was coming. Her breath caught. She couldn't lie to herself. her sister, definantly, and her parents as well. But not herself.

She was a little afraid of Kwan.

He was always with Dash and they were always mean to her. Shutting doors on her toes and taking her bag to throw it in bins, saying things that she most of the time couldn't remember but left her chest tight and her teeth clenched.  They were her bullies and she was afraid of them even if she tried not to show it. She took a step away from the boys bathroom. No one was coming, no one but her, and why should she help him? What had he ever done to deserve her help?

In her mind Danny saw herself yelling at her sister, righteous and terrible fury at her older, smart, mature, _normal_ sister. In her eyes, Jazz was everything she wished she could be, and everything she knew she could never be. Not a freak like Danny. She saw herself wedged under her bed, crying and flickering, and Jazz wedged awkwardly beside her. Always there for her, no matter what Danny did.

Did Kwan have a Jazz?

Sucking in a breath Danny forced her tense body to move. It was unnatural, being in the boys bathroom, but she could push that aside because Kwan had noticed her. The loud sobs had turned into harsh breathes and shuffling.

"Hello?.....Kwan?" She stepped further in and moved towards the stalls. One of the doors was swung shut.

There was harsh breaths and aborted noises before "Gi-irls shouldn’t be-e in here." he sounded choked.

She came to a stop in front of the shut door. The lock was turned, but the door hadn't shut properly. There was a sharp inhale before a movement in the stall startled her. The door jolted and she knew he was trying to fix the lock. Danny lunged, shoved her hand between the door and forced her hand to be _denser_. The door thudded hard against it.

"Get out!" Danny knew what the word 'hysteric' meant but she couldn't name a single time she had seen someone embody the word. It was the only way she could describe Kwans voice.

Danny scowled. Why did her have to be difficult? She was trying to help! It was very nearly a snarl when she snapped back "No!"

The door swung open.

Kwan had scurried away from the stall door, wedged between the wall and the toilet. His eyes were wide and he shook with each breath. His face contorted into emotions Danny had a hard time following before he writhed.

"GET OUT! DON’T! GO AWAY!"

Danny stared, eyes wide and mouth open. She was eight years old again, with a glowing baby on the tv. In Kwans eyes, she saw the fear she had felt that day.

Kwans skin was… changing. Flashing through colours and shades and patterns so fast it made her dizzy. She could see red marks down his arms, from scratching she thinks.

He was like that baby.

He was like her.

She looked into his eyes as he lost his energy, his voice dying. He stared back anxiously. For the second time that day her breath caught.

Suddenly he was shifting forwards, reaching out to grab her. Danny stumbled back, his hands on her arms. "You can't tell anyone! Please Fenton! You-you ca-an't tell!" there were tears again in his eyes. Her vision was blurry. She hiccupped.

She had never met anyone like her.

With shaking fingers her grabbed his wrists and just held them, because her world was changing and she felt like she would drift away. It didn't even take a thought for her to leave the ground. sometimes she had trouble telling where her body ended and the air began.

Kwans eyes widened and his hands scrambled as she floated a little taller than him. She let their hands catch and held on like an anchor. Her body flickered but she was sure to keep her hands a solid weight in his.

 

\---------------------------------------------------

 

The awe at these 'super powers' wore off fast, and suddenly there were people on tv talk shows and radio interviews, old men and women, speculation on what these children would do in their futures. About their potential risks.

And this was the world Danny lived in.

When Danny was thirteen the first white van rolled into town. She was so spooked when she heard they were asking around about quirked children she had nearly given herself away. She had never been so glad for her friends.

Sam and Tucker. She really had no clue what she would do without them. They had helped her away and back home, worried over her and tried to cheer her up. It had never been spoken between them, but Danny was sure they knew she had a quirk. The seemed to know: It was safest to never say it aloud. The next day at school Dash and Kwan had met them outside. Danny was tense, but there seemed to be some understanding between them suddenly. Kwan stood beside her and from then on, the two groups merged. A matter of safety. They mustn't have been very subtle, because it was like the whole student body suddenly knew.

There were Quirked kids in their school, and men in a white van had come looking for them.

For a year it worked.

Danny Fenton was just fourteen when a white van passed her on the street. When the van left, the street was empty.

 

 

 

 


	2. Of Badgers and Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vlad didn't get where he was by hesitating.
> 
> He also didn't get where he was by running in unprepared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a liar I needed to write more.
> 
> these are still one shots, just more of them and in the same universe.
> 
> these are not necessarily chronological.

Vladimir Masters was a very important man. His company knew it, the world knew it, and most importantly, he knew it. That didn't mean that there wasn't other things that were important to him.

 

Vladimir Masters had been in love with the same woman since he was 19 and fresh into college. All through their engineering degree he had loved her, even after their final project had blown up due to one idiot mistake and left him in a coma for months he had loved her. During his rehabilitation and his new determination to show her how much better he was then her other choice he had loved her. As he built his empire he had loved her. As she got married and popped out two children he loved her.

 

Then he met those two children, and he thought he had a way to get her to love him back.

 

He was a technological mogul. Of course he would have some security in his house and of course some of that would be cameras. So when he saw Maddie's youngest daughter floating around the room she was sharing with her sister, his mind immediately went to how he could profit.

 

Of course young Daniel, and what a name for a young girl, was quite upset that he knew. She was even more angry when she learnt what he was trying to accomplish. She called him a 'fruit-loop' and he was a little offended by that, really. There really was not many times that he didn't hold her 'gifts' over her head to get her to do this or that, and of those times he couldn't count even one where she did not fight against him like a furious little badger, hoarding her family behind her as she bared her teeth. For years they played this little game. He would push and push, try to get her to crumble under him, try to get her understand how much better he was. And perhaps as the years went on it was less about the understanding, about her relenting, and more about the game. More about him pushing her, and being shocked (delighted) every time the tiny girl snapped back.

 

When that glowing baby was born and the word 'Quirk' started getting thrown around Vlad was one call away from telling the closest news station about the young floating girl in Amity Park. People would want to speak to young Daniel, like they had wanted to speak to the other children. and of course the whole family couldn't just uproot for a few months as the whole debacle took its course. The family would split, and Vlad would either follow behind Maddie as she traveled with her youngest, or make himself present in Amity while Maddie stayed with her eldest. Either way he could already imagine the mighty scowl young Daniel would send his way. He could hear the ruckus she would cause as she dove head first into a fight with his personal bodyguard. Skulker, as the man insisted he be called, found the scuffles with the young girl amusing. Whelp, he called her.

 

He would have too, perhaps if he hadn't invited Maddie and her children to a little family dinner on his estate. He was quite fond of gloating, and he planned what he would say to young Daniel for days before they arrived.

 

Nearly a year after that glowing child was born and Daniel Fenton stood in his foyer like a shade. The young girl looked tired. Her eyes flickered, and when the rest of her family went to settle in after their drive he caught her eyes, ready to execute a cunning smirk just to rile the little badger up, she looked at him and he saw that she was afraid. The stupid, brave girl. She had never been afraid of him. Stressed and worried and angry. But never afraid. Never terrified.

 

Vladimir Masters hadn't gotten where he was in life by being stupid. Manipulating and cheating and twisting his way through the cracks he had climbed to the top. But you couldn't do that if you couldn’t see, couldn't read a room, a person.

 

Perhaps, this once, he had misread the situation.

 

He had frowned at the stalled girl, and she very nearly disappeared entirely before she skittered away. He raised his eyes to Skulker, who stood by the door behind where the Fentons had been. The large man had frowned back.

 

Something about the current events had his little badger spooked.

 

Vladimir Masters didn't like being in the dark. He didn't have all the information, variables that were unaccounted for. For once, he decided to pull back instead of pressing his advantage. He would wait and watch for now.

 

Tonight they would have a little family dinner, and nothing more.

 


	3. Go From Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the boys bathroom, at Casper High, Kwan takes his first steps.

 

Kwan fidgeted as he sat next to Fenton on the floor of the boys bathroom. His skin was still rolling through colours. She was still floating a little. It was comforting in a weird, out of body way. He shot a glance at the dark haired girl out of the corner of his eye. Her hair was floating around her head, like she was in water, with her knees tucked under her chin. He wondered how long she had had her quirk.

He sucked in a shuddering breath. He had a _quirk_.

He knew about them of course, had watched the news report with his parents, had listened down the hall as his mother worried about what sort of future was ahead with 'those children'. But never once had he thought that he had one. All the stories of older kids developing powers had talked about them being younger than ten when the quirk first showed. Kwan was twelve, and he didn't want his quirk.

He didn't want to be afraid.

Fenton must have had hers for a while, he thinks looking back at his…companion? Neither he nor Dash had seen her do anything weird. Well, weirder than usual for Fenton. Why hadn't her parents stepped forwards earlier about their daughter, it seemed like something they would be excited about, they were weirder than their kid. But then.

Kwan looked down at the colours rolling over his arms. He wouldn't want everyone looking at him either. And the things he had heard said about kids with quirks? Mutters of 'freak' and snorts and scowls, the word 'inhuman' spilling out of faceless mouths. No. Kwan can understand. He had only had his quirk for hours (days?) and he was already afraid of the world he wasn't sure he belonged to anymore. Breath hissing through his teeth, Kwan dug the stubs of his nails into his arms crossed over his raised knees.

He sucked his breath back in when fingers touched him. Fenton's knuckles brushed his leg, her face was still forward, but her eyes were on him and her brows were furrowed. He hissed out again and relaxed his death grip on his arms.

"So…" It felt immediately wrong for him to have spoken, his voice echoing the way bathrooms do. Never let it be said that he didn't have a good follow through. "Flying?"

She turned her face on her knees a little towards him. He thinks he would get tired looking out of the corner of his eye all the time. she had pulled her arm back and wrapped it back around her legs. They studied each other for a minute. He tried to see if there was anything….he didn't know for sure. Wrong maybe? Inhuman. He tried to see what made her different from him.

He didn't know what she saw.

He watched her tense and then relax, like someone had finally opened a window in her chest and let the air flow through. "It's not just flying." her eyes flickered away then back. She had looked at him like that before, he thinks. When she sees him and Dash walking over to her and her weird friends. It made him feel…something.

He hesitates a moment. How much would she tell him? It wasn't like they knew each other. Oh. He looked forward at the sinks at the thought. They had gone to school together for years, Amity Park was a small town, but he didn't know Danny Fenton. How do you start with that?

"What else?" maybe from the middle.

She doesn't hesitate as much this time. "I don't know for sure but…I think I can…rearrange my molecules or something. Make myself lighter than air,-" she bobs a little higher into the air and he notices that her clothes look like they're in water too, like her hair. She floats back down a moment later and with the same hand that had reached for him she knocked against the floor tiles. It sounded like, like when his mum puts her coffee mug down on the counter, but not quite. "- or harder than steel."

That seemed - "Wow." - kind of cool.

Fenton seemed to get a little brighter at his response, smiling a little, sitting a little straighter. It was weird. Not normal Fenton behaviour. Not that he knew.

"What about you?" She nods at him.

"Huh?" He wonders for a moment what his face looks like right now, because his arms look like a painting threw up on him. Little dots of colour fill up his skin. "Oh, uh…"

He's still watching his arms when she speaks again. "How long have you…" Kwan shuts his eyes and can only be grateful that she didn't say it out loud. She doesn't speak after that, and he just sits for a minute and tries not to think. But the question still hangs.

The last bell of the day had already rung when Kwan had noticed the tiny black dots on his hands. He was lucky that that the bathroom had been close then the black dots got bigger, and started to fade into a sickly yellow. Dash had hung around for a short while, asking what was wrong with him. Kwan had done his best to sound fine as he sent his best friend away, but his arms looked like a broken tv screen and the air was getting thin. When the whole world caught up to him and he choked on air, with tears in his eyes, Kwan could only think of the past week and times he had brushed off seeing tiny black dots around his arms and legs. He was just tired, it was dark, he was dirty, because the dots couldn't be anything else. They couldn't be _in_ his skin.

They could, and they are, and Kwan didn't know what to do. He was one of 'those children' now. "I think, maybe a few days?" He swiped at his eyes, snubbing the tears he was definitely not crying again. "It only started to, well, _this_ , today." he motioned towards his shifting colours, offering his arm to the air between them. "I'm not sure what exactly it is."

Fenton looks at him, then his arm, and she moves like a wisp as she reaches up to touch his arm. The colours darken under the pressure of her fingers, flickering across his skin. They pull away at the same time, and Kwan doesn't look at the floating girl, staring at the old sinks across from them.

Then Fenton speaks again and his reminded so sharply that this is _Fenton_. "I watched a documentary about squids once-" He knew before he said anything that maybe he was about to be…something. But now he was… and she brings up _squid_? Of all things! It's stupid and Fenton is stupid and his arms are stupid and!

"What do squids have to do with anything, nerd?!" he snarls at her and she stops. For the first time he watches as Danny Fenton's face twists into anger, past another emotion that Kwan can't place.

Her body twists through the air, _unnaturally_ , until she's standing a step further away from him. "Hey! I'm trying to help you!" Her hair and stuff isn't floating anymore.

Her body is flickering, and Kwan can see through her in spurts and flashes. She shifts back, and Kwan is struck by lightning because _she can't go_! He didn't know what to do, and if she left he would be _alone_! He scrambles onto his knees and reaches out to the only other person like him. They stop like that, studying each other again, frozen like some awful statue. After a moment Fenton crosses her arms and looks down and away, scowling, then back at him. Kwan settles down to sit on his heels, he's pretty sure she won't leave.

It's awkward and silent for long minutes. Fenton sits back down against the wall. She still isn't floating.

"Squids have this layer in their skin I think, that lets them change colour. It's like camouflage." She's quiet now, like she didn't want to break the silence.

He wouldn't ever admit it, but the silence he keeps is because he doesn’t quite get why she's telling him about squids. Then, as he's staring at his arms again, the understanding comes. And, ok, it's a little gross. Is he a squid kid now? Kwan doesn't even like calamari. But also… "Camo?" How could that not appeal to a twelve year old boy.

"Yeah."

So he can change colours, and might be a squid, and his chest with tight with what he thinks is anxiety but he isn't sure. Kwan looks once more at Fenton. She isn't looking at him, but she's still here. He isn't alone.

"Cool."

He isn't alone in this, even if the only other person he has right now is Fenton, and he can deal. Fenton has been living with her quirk for who knows how long and nothing bad has happened to her, so he'll be fine. He has to be. Clenching his fists, Kwan watches his skin shift a little faster. "I should probably figure out how to stay one colour, huh?"

Fenton spits out a laugh, and the air feels a little lighter. "Yeah." she's looking at him again, not mad anymore, he hopes, but her eyes have hope. In what, he might know. "Do…you want me to stay?"

"I…" They aren't alone. "Yeah."

"Ok."

 

 


	4. My Hand in Yours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friendship is knowing when to share your secrets. Love is knowing when to let them keep them.

The feeling that hovered around them at lunch that day kept Sam quiet. Usually she entertained herself by arguing with Tucker, or discussing Doom with Danny, but not today. Today there were whispers about a white van around their small town, people asking about kids with quirks. Kwan and Dash had met them outside of school, and while both she and Tucker had been fairly uncomfortable with the jocks Danny and Kwan had hardly strayed far from each other all day.

It made her tense. At the lunch table Danny and Kwan sat next to each other, drawing looks from the other students. Sam couldn't help but think they were trying to protect each other's backs. She wished it was her that Danny kept close to, that her friend had trusted her enough to keep her safe.

Turning her gaze away, she worried her lip. It felt like the world was finally catching up with their tiny little town, and Sam didn't like it. Trying not to look at Danny, she sought out Tucker beside her. His eyes were looking everywhere except the people they were sitting with, chewing rather determinedly on his questionable meat sandwich. He noticed her when she bumped her arm against his. Their eyes locked and Sam's anxiety was mirrored back at her. An understanding passed between them because what they had known for years was finally lain out in front of them.

Sam met Danny and Tucker when her parents moved to Amity Park when she was eight. It was short, and childish and not really something she could remember too clearly, but they had been together ever since. Of course it didn't take long to notice. Danny walking too lightly down the street. Danny falling too slowly from the monkey bars. Danny lifting something too heavy. Danny showing up at her second story window with no way to climb up. Danny floating just a little off the bed. Danny being Different.

Danny being Danny.

And through it all Tucker had been there, sharing glances with her, snickering as Danny fell a little through the wall she was leaning on, bumping Danny between them when her clothes started to float. Each of them holding Danny's hands when they would young and frightened because Danny was frighted of her 'Uncle' and some secret he knew. A secret that both Sam and Tucker new should _stayed_ a secret, even to them.

Secrets never shared are secrets never spread.

It was something they had decided with Tuckers hand clenched around her wrist tightly, his tiny face tight and big eyes darting. The question in her throat had caught, and her eyes had flickered to Danny's floating hair then back. Tuckers eyes had flickered to the other children further in the park, the parents on the benches, and Sam was suddenly afraid of something she couldn't put into words.

There were kids with quirks on tv, sometimes, but mostly frowning adults and frowning parents and frowning strangers on streets. Sam didn't think she could bare it if they frowned at Danny. Like she was…Different.

So Sam had twisted her hand into Tuckers, stood tall and strong because she knew her friend got scared easy so she had to be not so scared for him, and the two of them swore never to speak it out loud. To never give their friend the target of being known.

Taking a deep breath, Sam knew it couldn't be like that anymore. She hated that too.

She must be frowning, scowling maybe, because a foot nudges her leg.

"Sam?"

Danny is looking at her, Kwan and Dash too, with her big blue eyes. Sam had always tried to ignore them, but she loved the two thin, bright green concentric rings in Danny's eyes. She only ever noticed when they were close.

"I don’t like this." she said, stabbing at the vegetables on her tray. "What gives these guys the right to come into our town and sniff around like this." she looks pointedly at her two friends. "There's nothing for them to find here."

Danny's lips thinned, Kwan fidgeted in his seat, and Sam glared at the other students in the cafeteria.

"Not like I agree with nerds… but the goth's right." Dash still had food in his mouth, disgusting as always.

Sam scoffed at the jock, jabbing a finger towards him. "What you did right there, that was called agreeing." she shot the blond a vicious smirk.

She practically see Dash shake as he held back his desire to throw something at her. The fact he didn't, she thinks, is a point in his favour at least. Dash taking something seriously? Unheard of.

"But if they do?" Tuckers voice broke, high and anxious. He was on the receiving end of two hissing glares, one kick to the shin, and one punch in the arm. He covered himself with his arms with an indignant 'Hey!'

Danny leant forward on her elbows, that determination Sam often saw in regards to Vlad shinning in her eyes and making her heart stutter, her voice quiet but strong, "They won't."

Like they were feeding of each other, Kwan sat a little straighter.

Dash smirked at his friend, but Sam thinks there must be something else in his blue eyes. She feels tucker relax beside her, palming his PDA and leaning a little into her.

Sam sat her toes over Danny's under the table and was rewarded with a toothy grin that made her face heat.

They would get through this, and Sam would fight with everything she had to stay by Danny's side. She would keep her safe.

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think. I don't know if i will ever write the full story, but maybe i'll make more one shots


End file.
